


Look to Tuesday

by quiet__tiger



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Bad Days, Drama, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-10-23 05:18:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10712997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiet__tiger/pseuds/quiet__tiger
Summary: Bruce's day doesn't go well. But it's not all bad.





	Look to Tuesday

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: "Bad Day."
> 
> Originally posted to Livejournal 22nd-Oct-2008.

Bruce knew the day wouldn’t go well when it started with him having to discipline Dick. Sometime yesterday, before Bruce had gotten home, the boy had broken a model ship Bruce’s father had built. While it hadn’t been expensive, Bruce wanted more to remind him of his father than his name and his house.

Dick knew it, too, the way he’d looked at him with his big blue eyes that were filled with tears. Bruce told him that he was upset, but then they had a chance to talk, smooth things out, and Dick went to go get ready for school with a smile on his face.

It was the last smile Bruce would see all day.

The Wayne Enterprises board of directors was angry with him for skipping out on some fundraiser over the weekend.

He’d been off the planet.

Missing the fundraiser led to losing a multimillion dollar deal to LexCorp, which just made everyone pissy. And it made Lex happy, and listening to Lex gloat was never high on Bruce’s list of entertaining things to do.

Not that he even had a list like that.

He’d been off the planet over the weekend fighting aliens—the tentacled kind—with the Justice League. Today he was only as functional as he was due to lovely pain medication. On the mission, he’d apparently been difficult to work with, as Clark insisted on reminding him when he called with _Daily Planet_ business that afternoon. He sat through several minutes of a teamwork lecture until he just couldn’t take it anymore and hung up on the annoying Kryptonian.

Diana apparently didn’t like that, so she called a few minutes after _that_. Bruce really didn’t like the way it felt like his mother and father were tag-teaming him. He wasn’t a child, and they weren’t his parents. But they did a damn good job of making him feel like a petulant teenager.

She finally ended the conversation, and Bruce thought that if J’onn, Wally, or Oliver showed up or called, he was going to kick whoever it was out of the League. He wasn’t sure if he had the power to do that, but he’d do everything he could to make it so.

Finally it was night and he could go on patrol. Dick was grounded and so he might not realize Bruce was leaving the house late (or early for Batman), but eventually he was going to realize Bruce was gone an awful lot at night. But for now, Bruce focused on becoming Batman. He was even a little more eager than normal; lately his patrols sometimes led to interesting encounters with Catwoman. Though he didn’t understand it, he appreciated the relationship they had.

Except tonight during their encounter she was in too feisty of a mood and after she kissed him, she slashed his chin with her claws. The scrapes stung, would have to be cleaned, and they meant he’d either need make-up tomorrow or a hell of a cover story. Were there mountain lions outside Gotham? Then the board of directors would want to know why he was out hiking in the cold weather, and would deem him even more of a dolt than they already thought he was.

Fortunately, the rest of the night was quiet, except for the paint dumped over the Batmobile. Technically, that was quiet, too, and so was Bruce as he ground his teeth. His beautiful car was impervious to bullets, knives, animals, and crazies.

And now he needed a genuine force field to keep away lunatic pranksters.

Wearily, he climbed into his once-gorgeous car and drove home. He was almost amazed to find his house still standing, Alfred alive, and a sandwich waiting for him on the computer console. And Dick was apparently upstairs and asleep. Small wonders.

He was in the process of writing the day completely off and contemplating a long vacation away from his complicated life when he saw it on the side table in his room. A small, wooden model ship, crudely glued together and with the paint still clearly wet. There was a note underneath it, written in Dick’s childish handwriting:

_I know it’s not the same as the one I broke, but I wanted to replace it as best I could._

Dick... Dick was a good kid. And the gesture of the new model ship was nice, but unnecessary. Dick had broken his father’s ship because he’d been playing with it. He’d been playing with it because he finally felt more comfortable in the Manor. He didn’t feel like a guest any longer, he felt like the cavernous building was his home.

Bruce smiled as he remembered their conversation that morning. He didn’t have a small stranger in his house anymore, he had a ward. And maybe, if Dick proved to remain comfortable and stayed smart and eager and physically skilled, he could become Batman’s partner.

He was glad this disaster of a day ended on a high note, such as it was. But he was still looking forward to Tuesday.


End file.
